Cal Academics Are Nice but QB Jack Plummer Came to Berkeley for Football
Football players who commit to Cal typically say academics played a role in their decision to come to Berkeley.
Not so for quarterback Jack Plummer.
He already had his degree from Purdue, having achieved it in three and half years, and he is in the Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Technology program at Cal, indicating he is not short on education and lofty goals. But in this case he was looking for a place to demonstrate his football skills. The presence of offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave and the opportunity to play in a major conference were what made the Golden Bears’ situation attractive, so he transferred to Cal this offseason.
The Cal academic reputation “is a plus," he said, "but not for me on this one, I was looking more strictly football side.”
Coaches might not say it publicly, but that is what they want to hear. They want players to come to their program for football reasons, indicating the football program is strong enough to lure top talent without other enticements. Stanford is an outstanding academic institution, but it became a football school under David Shaw after he guided the Cardinal to three Rose Bowls and a Fiesta Bowl. Elite athletes were coming there for football reasons as much as for the strong academics.
Cal wants talented players to come to Berkeley for football reasons. That’s when a college becomes a football school. Having an offensive coordinator with Musgrave’s extensive NFL background suggests Cal is trying to become a “football school.”
“I thought [Cal] was a good opportunity for me to showcase my talents, be able to show what I can do at a high level,” Plummer said. “Having to play under someone like Coach Musgrave who’s been an NFL coach for however many years was a big thing too.”
The assumption is that Plummer will be the Golden Bears’ quarterback for the next two seasons, succeeding Chase Garbers. But you also don’t expect coaches to promise a potential transfer that he will be a starter before he can show them what he can do in their system.
“They told me they weren’t going to guarantee that I was going to start, that I was going to have to earn it,” Plummer saidin the video atop the story.
He hopes to begin earning the starting when spring ball begins April 6. Plummer will compete against Zach Johnson, Kai Millner, Robby Rowell and Blake DeBisschop, none of whom played last season, as well as sixth-year player Ryan Glover, who started one game last season in Chase Garber’s absence and was ineffective.
But you don’t bring in a transfer quarterback unless you expect him to play a major role. That is particularly true at Cal, which has accepted only a few transfers under Justin Wilcox, choosing to bring in someone only if there is a pressing need.
Plummer began the 2021 season as Purdue's starting quarterback and he completed 59.8% of his passes with 11 touchdowns and eight interceptions in the seven games he played. He was replaced as Purdue’s starting quarterback in the fifth game of the season, and his replacement, Aidan O’Connell, was named second-team all-Big Ten and announced in December that he was returning to Purdue for a sixth season. Plummer had started 13 games at Purdue and the Boilermakers went 5-8 in those games, including 3-1 in 2021, but it was obvious O’Connell would be the starter in 2022.
So he entered the transfer portal, which has become a common stopping-off place for Division I football players but is still a rather mysterious passageway to the outside world. Plummer explains in the video below that communications with interested schools are not like the recruiting pitch college coaches give to high school athletes.
Plummer fielded telephone calls and twitter messages from countless coaches across the county for the first few days after entering the portal. And those coaches didn’t court Plummer or offer him a scholarship as much as they told him what the situation was at their school and how he might fit in.
“For me it was more up front,” Plummer said, “just kind of being an older guy, I’m 22 years old, coaches aren’t talking to me like I’m a high school kid. They’re not trying to wow me with all the stuff to sell me on. They’re kind of telling be straight up how it is. I was kind of on a condensed schedule too, wanting to enroll in January, so there wasn’t a lot of time to twiddle around. They were like, this is how it is, either you like it or you don’t, which I actually really respected, just having man-to-man conversations with people and them telling me how it was.”
The 2022 starting quarterbacks at seven of the Pac-12 schools are likely to be players who transferred in after the 2021 season, and Plummer is expected to be one of them. The big question for Cal football is: Will Jack Plummer be the answer to fill the void left by Chase Garbers' departure? The Bears' 2022 season rests on the answer.
He will have to make some adjustments to Cal’s offensive system after spending four years in the Brohm system (head coach Jeff Brohm and his brother, offensive coordinator Brian Brohm) at Purdue.
The Boilermakers tried to run as many plays as possible in as many formations with as many wrinkles as possible.
“And here [at Cal] it’s, we do what we do and we do what we do good,” Plummer said. “A little bit more pro style and under-center stuff than we did at Purdue. So it’ a little more pro style at Cal, and a little more multiple and do everything at Purdue.”
Plummer will try to show Musgrave and Wilcox during spring drills that he can pick up the system and become an on-field leader.
The 6-foot-5, 215-pound Plummer is a traditional drop-back passer who did not get a lot of recruiting attention out of Gilbert (Arizona) High School. Arizona and Oregon State were the only Pac-12 schools that offered him a scholarship, according to 247 Sports. Cal did not recruit him then, but Plummer is familiar with the work of former Golden Bears quarterback Aaron Rodgers, one of the players he enjoys watching.
“I wouldn’t say I mock or emulate any quarterbacks, but I just like watching football in general, watching any kind of game,” he said.
Although Gilbert, Arizona, is just 25 miles from the Arizona Cardinals home stadium in Glendale, he had no particular allegiance to the Cardinals.
“I just like watching the games and how the quarterbacks play,” Plummer said. “Obviously I like watching Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers, those guys, the ones who are really good. [Rodgers] is always fun to watch, and the things they can do with the football. Honestly I just like watching their offenses and how they take control and the command that they have on the field.”
Cal has a number of issues to address in spring ball, but the focus will be on Plummer. He is the key to whether Cal can compete for a Pac-12 North title.
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Cover photo by Trevor Ruszkowski, USA TODAY Sports
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